Thy wretched infant turns his head
In melancholy wise,

And looks to meet the placid stare
Of those unbending eyes.

I never saw thee, lovely one,-
Perchance I never may;

It is not often that we cross
Such people in our way;

But if we meet in distant years,
Or on some foreign shore,
Sure I can take my Bible oath,
I've seen that face before.

The Ballad of the Oysterman

It was a tall young oysterman lived by the river-side,
His shop was just upon the bank, his boat was on the tide;
The daughter of a fisherman, that was so straight and slim,
Lived over on the other bank, right opposite to him.

It was the pensive oysterman that saw a lovely maid,
Upon a moonlight evening, a sitting in the shade;

He saw her wave her handkerchief, as much as if to say,
"I'm wide awake, young oysterman, and all the folks away."

Then up arose the oysterman, and to himself said he,

"I guess I'll leave the skiff at home, for fear that folks should see; I read it in the story-book, that, for to kiss his dear, Leander swam the Hellespont, and I will swim this here."

And he has leaped into the waves, and crossed the shining stream, And he has clambered up the bank, all in the moonlight gleam; O there were kisses sweet as dew, and words as soft as rain,But they have heard her father's step, and in he leaps again! Out spoke the ancient fisherman,-"O what was that, my daughter?"

""Twas nothing but a pebble, sir, I threw into the water.'
"And what is that, pray tell me, love, that paddles off so fast?"
"It's nothing but a porpoise, sir, that's been a swimming past."

Out spoke the ancient fisherman,-"Now bring me my harpoon!
I'll get into my fishing-boat, and fix the fellow soon.
Down fell that pretty innocent, as falls a snow-white lamb,
Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, like seaweed on a clam.
Alas for those two loving ones! she waked not from her swound,
And he was taken with the cramp, and in the waves was
drowned;

But Fate has metamorphosed them, in pity of their woe,
And now they keep an oyster-shop for mermaids down below.

A Moontide Lyric.

The Hot Season.
THE folks, that on the first of May
Wore winter coats and hose,
Began to say, the first of June,

"Good Lord! how hot it grows!
At last two Fahrenheits blew up,
And killed two children small,
And one barometer shot dead
A tutor with its ball!

Now all day long the locusts sang
Among the leafless trees;

Three new hotels warped inside out,
The pumps could only wheeze;

And ripe old wine, that twenty years
Had cobwebbed o'er in vain,
Came spouting through the rotten corks,
Like Joly's best Champagne !

The Worcester locomotives did
Their trip in half an hour;
The Lowell cars ran forty miles
Before they checked the power;
Roll brimstone soon became a drug,
And loco-focos fell;

All asked for ice, but everywhere
Saltpetre was to sell.

Plump men of mornings ordered tights,
But, ere the scorching noons,

Their candle-moulds had grown as loose
As Cossack pantaloons!

The dogs ran mad,- -men could not try
If water they would choose;
A horse fell dead, -he only left
Four red-hot, rusty shoes!

But soon the people could not bear
The slightest hint of fire;
Allusions to caloric drew

A flood of savage ire;

The leaves on heat were all torn out
From every book at school,

And many blackguards kicked and caned,
Because they said, "Keep cool!"

The gas-light companies were mobbed,
The bakers all were shot,

The penny press began to talk

Of Lynching Doctor Nott;

And all about the warehouse steps

Were angry men in droves,

Crashing and splintering through the doors

To smash the patent stoves!

The abolition men and maids

Were tanned to such a hue,

You scarce could tell them from their friends,

Unless their eyes were blue;

And when I left, society

Had burst its ancient guards,

And Brattle Street and Temple Place

Were interchanging cards!

A Portrait.

A STILL Sweet, placid, moonlight face,
And slightly nonchalant,

Which seems to claim a middle place
Between one's love and aunt,
Where childhood's star has left a ray
In woman's sunniest sky,
As morning dew and blushing day
On fruit and blossom lie.

And yet, and yet I cannot love
Those lovely lines on steel;
They beam too much of heaven above,
Earth's darker shades to feel;
Perchance some early weeds of care
Around my heart have grown,
And brows unfurrowed seem not fair,
Because they mock my own.

Alas! when Eden's gates were sealed,
How oft some sheltered flower
Breathed o'er the wanderers of the field,
Like their own bridal bower;

Yet, saddened by its loveliness,
And humbled by its pride,

Earth's fairest child they could not bless,
It mocked them when they sighed.

An Evening Thought.

WRITTEN AT SEA.

IF sometimes in the dark blue eye,
Or in the deep red wine,
Or soothed by gentlest melody,

Still warms this heart of mine,

Yet something colder in the blood,

And calmer in the brain,

Have whispered that my youth's bright flood Ebbs, not to flow again.

If by Helvetia's azure lake,

Or Arno's yellow stream,

Each star of memory could awake,

As in my first young dream,

I know that when mine eye shall greet
The hillsides bleak and bare,

That gird my home, it will not meet
My childhood's sunsets there.

O when love's first, sweet, stolen kiss
Burned on my boyish brow,

Was that young forehead worn as this?
Was that flushed cheek as now?
Were that wild pulse and throbbing heart
Like these, which vainly strive,
In thankless strains of soulless art,
To dream themselves alive?

Alas! the morning dew is gone,
Gone ere the full of day;
Life's iron fetter still is on,
Its wreaths all torn away;
Happy if still some casual hour
Can warm the fading shrine,
Too soon to chill beyond the power
Of love, or song, or wine!

The Wasp and the hornet.

THE two proud sisters of the sea,
In glory and in doom!—

Well may the eternal waters be
Their broad, unsculptured tomb!
The wind that rings along the wave,
The clear, unshadowed sun,

Are torch and trumpet o'er the brave,
Whose last green wreath is won!

No stranger hand their banners furled,
No victor's shout they heard;
Unseen, above them ocean curled,
Save by his own pale bird;

The gnashing billows heaved and fell;
Wild shrieked the midnight gale;
Far, far beneath the morning swell
Were pennon, spar, and sail.

The land of Freedom! Sea and shore
Are guarded now, as when

Her ebbing waves to victory bore
Fair barks and gallant men;
O many a ship of prouder name
May wave her starry fold,

Nor trail, with deeper light of fame,
The paths they swept of old!